Budget Summary: Malaysia

Our averages for 3 months living/ traveling in Malaysia. We averaged $114.63 per day for all expenses for a family of 5.

Daily Budget: $130 AUDAveraged: $114.63 AUD

Travel Insurance – $5.13 AUD per dayWe bought travel insurance for 6 months in Asia for $944.10. Three months in Malaysia made up half of that which we broke down into a daily average.
Flights
The daily average includes the cost of flights from Singapore to Penang, Malaysia for a family of five with Jetstar which totalled $447.08 AUD.

Accommodation– $47.06 AUD per day
We stayed in Airbnbs for a month at a time, except for once in Taiping where we stayed for 4 nights in a hotel which cost around $60 AUD per night. The apartments we stayed in were 2-3 bedroom secure apartments with air conditioning, wifi, a kitchen, and laundry, with access to a shared pool. By the end of our trip our average for accommodation was $47.06 per day which was below our budget of $50 per night.

Local Travel– $6.26 AUD per day
We mostly used Grab and Ubers, taxis rarely, and hired a car once for one day in Penang (approx $60 for the day). The average also includes train tickets from Butterworth to Taiping, Taiping to Ipoh, and Ipoh to KL.

Food – $40.99 AUD per day ($286.93 AUD per week)
We ate a mix of local, western, and home cooked meals. Local food was far too spicy for most of us so we ate more western food than most others do, so this could be done for much cheaper if you have a tolerance for spicy food.

Sightseeing & Entertainment – $5.79 AUD per day
We did a lot of sightseeing in Penang, Taiping, and Ipoh, but not a lot by the time we reached Kuala Lumpur (morning sickness, yech!).

SIMs & Internet – $1.27 AUD per day ($37.81 per month for two mobile phones)We bought two SIMs – one each – and initial credit of $15 AUD each for a month, but we needed to top up a couple of times to make phone calls home to Australia so we averaged $18.90 AUD per month each.

The rest of the budget was spread across Postage & Souvenirs, Educational supplies, Medication, and Miscellaneous.